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I
ROUND I
Blue drubs
Spartans,
inside and out
By John Leroi
Daily Sports Editor
Last week: in East Lansing.
Saturday: here.
Last week: good Michigan win.
Saturday: real good Michigan win.
Last week: for some wacky reason, the game didn't count
toward the Big Ten standings.
Saturday: oh yeah, it counted.
Last week: Michigan State concentrated so much on the
shooting prowess of one Louis Bullock that the Wolverines'
trio of big men had a field day, combining for 44 points.
Saturday: Bullock scorched the Spartans for 22 points,
courtesy of six 3-pointers, five in the first half.
Instead of a 13-point win like last week, No. 16 Michigan
(6-3 Big Ten, 16-5 overall) played an inspired first half before
No DCEFOR ISU
MARK FRIEDMAN/Daily
Boling Green's Dave Faulkner tried to corral Brendan Morrison, but just like most
of Michigan's opponents this season, he couldn't. Morrison scored his 21st goal of
the season in the Wolverines' 6-.1victory over the Falcons on Saturday night.
Icers pound Falcons 6-1,
take control
bDan Stillman
Daily Sports Writer
Believe it or not, the Michigan
hockey team has a significant weak-
ness - at least it did.
Saturday night against Bowling
Green, the Wolverines generated a
single-period season-high 26 shots
on goal, three of which went in, dur-
ing a frantic second period to take a
commanding three-goal lead.
Michigan (16-1-2 CCHA, 25-1-3
overall) went on to defeat Bowling
Gren (8-10-3, 13-12-3), 6-1 in front
of 6,687 at sold-out Yost Ice Arena.
The victory extended the
Wolverines' unbeaten streak to 22,
-breaking the previous school record
of 21, which spanned the end of the
1947-48 season and the beginning of
the '48-'49 campaign.
efore its last two games,
higan had struggled during in the
second period. The Wolverines had
scored 35 goals in the middle stanza
for the season, far less than the 66
and 57 goals they had compiled in
the first and third periods, respective-
ly.
Michigan has also faltered defen-
sively in the second period this sea-
son, allowing 44 more shots on goal
than in the first.
ut suddenly, the Wolverines'
gest weakness has become their
strength.
Saturday night's second-period
performance was preceded by anoth-
of CCHA
er three-goal effort in the second
period of Thursday night's game at
Ohio State.
"We've been talking to our psy-
chologist Hugh Bray about (second-
period problems) a bit," Michigan
forward Jason Botterill said. "It's a
situation where we got in a little bit
of a lull in the month of January there
in the second periods. We sort of put
the second period as the period to
separate ourselves from our competi-
tion.
"It's good to, each period, have a
focus. First period, we want to focus
on setting the tone early, and the third
period, we just want to find a way to
win. I think now that we have a good
clear focus on what we want to do in
" the second period, it's helping us out
a lot."
It looked like it was going to be
another rough second period for
Michigan on Saturday night when
Bowling Green scored 1 1/2 minutes
into the stanza to tie the game at one.
But the Wolverines took back the
lead 28 seconds later when center
Mike Legg hacked in a rebound that
seemed to sit in the crease forever
before he finally got his stick on it.
"I saw it lying there and I was wait-
ing to get hit and I was sort of brac-
ing myself," Legg said. "I was trying
to pull it and shoot it in and it was
just sitting there. The goalie sort of
made a move for it and I sort of
See FALCONS, Page 4B
Michigan 85
9 Michigan State 65
cruising to an 85-65 victory over Michigan State (4-5, 11-7)
on Saturday"
It was the Wolverines' second win in a week over their
intrastate rival - and maybe this one was a little sweeter.
"We didn't quite play the way we wanted to last week"
said Michigan center Robert Traylor, who celebrated his 20th
birthday Saturday by scoring 16 points and grabbing eight
boards. "Today we had it all going, inside and out, both ends
of the floor."
Though the second half was good, the first was better for
the Wolverines. Michigan State kept it close for the first five
minutes of the game. The Spartans had a 10-6 lead after a lay-
up by Antonio Smith at 4:37 of the first half.
But Michigan reeled off a 12-0 run to give itself an 18-10
lead. The two teams traded baskets for the next three minutes,
with Michigan State guard Ray Weathers scoring the
Spartans' next eight points and Travis Conlan netting eight of
Michigan's next 10.
But it got worse for Michigan State after that. The
Wolverines spent the last seven minutes of the half on a 20-4 s
run that made the halftime score 46-23 and pretty much
ended things for the Spartans.
Bullock nailed all five of the threes he took in the first,
including three in a 56-second span late in the half. Conlan
got in on the act as well, hitting four of his six shots, includ-
ing two threes, and dishing out five assists.
"You all just saw Michigan play a real good first half," Maceo Baston led a stingy Michigand
See SPARTANS, Page 5B Mateen Cleaves to 6-of-15 shooting a
A4 changbzg to the gadP~
SARA STILLMAN/Daily
defense, which held Michigan State's highly-touted freshman
s the Wolverines coasted to a 20-point blowout.
orderfi
Hoosiers pummel
women's hoops, 73-5 6
By Kevin Kasiborski
Daily Sports Writer
BLOOMINGTON - February
has finally brought temperatures
above freezing, but there is still
enough ice on the sidewalk to cause
a hard fall.
And fall is what the Michigan
en's basketball team's shooting
tentage did yesterday, when
Indiana tripped up the Wolverines,,
73-56.
The Wolverines shot only 29 per-
cent from the field (21 for 72) one
week after scorching the nets at a
.604 clip in their win over Iowa.
Michigan (4-5 Big Ten, 12-6 over-
all) trailed by only one with 30 sec-
onds remaining in the first half. A
up by Indiana's Tatjana Vesel
e ended the Hoosiers lead to three.
With the shot clock turned off, the
Wolverines should've held the ball
for the last shot, but Michigan guard
Akisha Franklin was called for trav-
elling.
deficit up to that point.
Indiana (4-6, 12-9) took control of
the game at the start of the second
half with a 12-3 run, and Michigan
was never within single-digits of the
lead the rest of the way.
"We have not done a good job in
the last two minutes of the first half
in our last three basketball games,"
Indiana coach Jim Izard said. "Today
we went from plus-one to plus-six."
"We came out in the second half
and took it to them on both ends of
the floor and built a commanding
lead."
Michigan made only nine field
goals in the second half despite
attempting 42 shots.
"We couldn't score," Michigan
coach Sue Guevara said. "We had
some wide-open looks. Obviously, if
you can't score from the perimeter,
your big girls aren't going to be open
inside, and I thought we tried to
force it down inside."
Indiana's outside shooters were
et's hop in our DeLoreans and go
back in time a bit. Say to the mid-
le of October, before the college
basketball season got underway.
"Excuse me, Mr. Basketball expert,
what is the key to success for
Michigan this season?"
"Well there, mental midget, that's a
pretty dumb question. Michigan's
frontcourt will be what takes the
Wolverines to the Final Four. No
doubt about it."
Now that we are midway through
Michigan's Big Ten slate, we know
that there is
doubt about it.
So far this
conference
season, the-
most impor-
tant factor in
Michigan's ALAN
success has GO DENBACH
been its back-
court. Louis The Bronx
Bullock and Bomber
Travis Conlan
have been the Wolverines steadiest,
and overall, most valuable players.
And Saturday's game against
Michigan State was the backcourt's
ultimate test thus far. At least, the ulti-
mate test of its endurance.
With Brandun Hughes suspended
for the game, Michigan coach Steve
Fisher pretty much asked starters
Louis Bullock and Travis Conlan to
give ironman efforts. That simply
entailed playing close to, if not all of,
the full 40 minutes.
What Fisher didn't expect was for
the pair to have two of the best games
ir icAbigan,
Conlan did was score a career-high 12
points and dish out a Michigan sea-
son-best nine assists.
"Bullock got into one of his shoot-
ing frenzies where you knew he was
going to make it every time he tried to
shoot it," Fisher said.
"Travis Conlan," he continued,
"played about as good a total game as
he has played for us since he has been
here at Michigan."
What made their performances all
the more astounding was that Bullock
and Conlan were doing it with only
Ron Oliver to back them up. With all
due respect, Oliver is a very capable{
fourth guard but shouldn't be expected
to assume Hughes' minutes. Both
Conlan and Bullock almost surpassed
Oliver's season total Saturday alone,
playing a combined 73 out of a possi-
ble 80 minutes.
At times, you just have to wonder
how the big men stole all the attention
in the preseason.
Times like when Bullock hit three
3-pointers in 56 seconds late in the
first half to give Michigan its 23-point
halftime lead.
Times like when Conlan drove the
lane and whipped a no-look pass
across his body, in true Magic Johnson
form, to Maceo Baston for a sensa-
tional dunk.
Times like when the two of them
walked off the court at the end of the
game looking at the scoreboard and
seeing a 20-point Michigan advantage.
But these times where the backcourt
has won the game for Michigan aren't
new. They've been happening all sea-
son.
Like when Conlan's all-around